Many of the medical care garments and products, protective wear garments, mortuary and veterinary products, and personal care products in use today are partially or wholly constructed of extruded filamentary or fibrous web materials such as nonwoven web materials. Examples of such products include, but are not limited to, medical and health care products such as surgical drapes, gowns and bandages, protective workwear garments such as coveralls and lab coats, and infant, child and adult personal care absorbent articles such as diapers, training pants, disposable swimwear, incontinence garments and pads, sanitary napkins, wipes and the like. Other uses for nonwoven web materials include veterinary and mortuary products and materials, geotextiles and house wrap materials. For these applications nonwoven web materials provide functional, tactile, comfort and/or aesthetic properties that can approach or even exceed those of traditional woven textiles or knitted cloth materials.
The composition of the fibers in a fabric such as a nonwoven web has a significant impact on the functional, tactile, comfort and/or aesthetic properties of the fabric or material. As an example, the fibers of nonwoven webs are often made of or include one or more thermoplastic polymers having different physical properties that can affect the properties of the web material. For example, nonwoven web materials made from elastic polymer fibers may desirably impart properties of stretch and recovery, which can provide for articles or selected portions of articles having improved wearer body fit or body conformance.
However, elastic polymers and fibers and fabrics made from elastic polymers tend to have unpleasant tactile aesthetic properties, such as feeling rubbery or tacky to the touch, making them unpleasant and uncomfortable against a wearer's skin. Nonwoven webs and fibers made from non-elastic polymers, on the other hand, tend to feel more cloth-like to the skin, having better tactile, comfort and aesthetic properties. Therefore, it would be desirable to be able to make elastic-containing elements of nonwoven fabrics which have improved tactile or skin-feel aesthetics. In addition, because nonwoven materials are often utilized in limited- or single-use disposable products, and elastic polymers generally are considerably more expensive than the non-elastic polymers typically used in nonwoven materials, there remains a need for reducing the cost of producing elastic-containing elements of nonwoven fabrics.